Tag Archives: sadhvi Pragya

There are a few photographs which the bigwigs of the Hindutva Brigade/Sangh Parivar would like to be erased from public memory. One such photograph shows Sadhvi Pragya, an ex-member of the ABVP, sitting with Shivraj Singh Chouhan, Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh, Rajnath Singh and few others. As it was later revealed they had gathered to console the widow of a BJP leader from MP, who had just died.

Public memory is very short but one can stretch it a bit to recollect the tremendous consternation in BJP/RSS circles when Sadhvi Pragya was arrested by the Anti Terrorist Squad led by the legendary police office Hemant Karkare on 23 October, 2008 for her alleged role in the 2008 Malegaon bomb blast. This photograph had suddenly gone viral when there were denials by many leaders of the saffron brigade that they had never met her.

Now that the NIA, the federal agency established by the government to combat terror in India, has given a ‘clean chit’ to Sadhvi Pragya and few of her accomplices, should one expect that all those photographs showing her proximity to various leaders of the saffron establishment would be prominently exhibited? It must be remembered that leaders of BJP have even claimed that it was an act of “treason” to arrest her.

‘Cat drinks milk with closed eyes and thinks the world is not watching it’

(Marathi Proverb)

I.

Rare have been occasions in recent times that the RSS, with all its anushangik (affiliated) organisations on their toes, is engaged in dousing the fire in which it has caught itself unawares. Reason being the ‘interview’ of one of its own Pracharaks (wholetimer) turned terrorist named Swami Aseemanand which was published in a leading magazine named ‘Caravan’.(http://www.caravanmagazine.in/reportage/believer). According to the RSS, it is a ‘concocted’ one and has even issued a handwritten letter supposedly written by the interviewee ‘denying’ that any such interview occurred whereas the magazine has stood the ground and has even made transcripts of the said interview and its audio recordings public.

Perhaps with the ‘denial’ by the interviewee the matter should have ended there for the RSS, but this does not seem to be the case. And for reasons which is known to itself, it is trying to ‘clarify’ its stand on various aspects which came up during the interview and is trying to distance itself – once again – from Swami Aseemanand alias Naba Kumar Sarkar, a disciplined activist of the ‘Parivar’ for last more than three decades, who hails from a village in West Bengal. Continue reading Mirror, Mirror on the Wall ! Who Were Those ‘Bad Elements’ Mr Bhagwat?→

…Government have, however, noticed with regret that in practice members of Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh have not adhered to their professed ideals.

“Undesirable and even dangerous activities have been carried on by the members of the Sangh. It has been found that in several parts of the country individual members of the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh have indulged in acts of violence involving arson, robbery, dacoity and murder and have collected illicit arms and ammunitions. They have been found circulating leaflets, exhorting people to resort to terrorist methods, to collect firearms, to create disaffection against the government and suborn the police and military.”

(The government communique of February 4, 1948, announcing the ban on RSS after Gandhi’s assassination)

On Nathuram Godse, (19 th May 1910 – 15 th Nov 1949) Advani asserts that Godse had “severed links with RSS in 1933… had begun to bitterly criticise the RSS”. This was flatly contradicted by none other than Godse’s brother Gopal, who was also an accused at the trial for conspiracy to murder. He published his book Why I Assassinated Mahatma Gandhi in December 1993. Speaking in New Delhi on the occasion of the release of his book, Gopal Godse revealed what many had suspected—they had both been active members of the RSS (The Statesman; December 24, 1993).

What could be said to be the first act of terrorism in independent India?

Everybody would agree that killing of Mahatma Gandhi by a Hindu fanatic Nathuram Godse constitutes the first terrorist act in independent India. Godse, a Maharashtrian Brahmin, hailing from Pune was associated with Hindu Mahasabha at the time of Mahatma’s assassination and had his initial forays in the world of politics with the RSS. During his tour of the area Hedgewar, the first supremo of RSS, use to be accompanied by Nathuram , the future assassin of Gandhi. Godse had in fact joined the RSS in 1930, winning prominence as a speaker and organiser.

It took Shahid Azmi’s cold-blooded murder on 11th February 2010 at his office near Kurla, for the world to come alive to his importance. Soft spoken and modest, it is the sweep of the cases he fought, challenging the State’s calculated targeting of innocent Muslims, that marked Shahid’s remarkable achievements as a lawyer within a short span of six years in the legal profession.

One of these cases related to the brutal lathi charge in Arthur Road Jail in central Mumbai, on 28th June 2008, by the jail staff along with convicts and undertrials from the so-called `patriotic’ underworld gangs, on a select group of undertrial-inmates. This assault was conducted under the overall supervision of the-then Jail Superintendent Swati Sathe. To the outside world, Ms Sathe was a tough no-nonsense, non corrupt woman officer who probably wished to become the next Kiran Bedi. But underneath her stiff khakhi uniform ruled a tough no-nonsense hindutva heart, no less.